Voice of the DBA

Tag: Tesla

  • A Tale of Two Drives

    One of the things I haven’t thought about much with my Tesla is range anxiety, even in winter. However, I recently had two almost identical trips with vastly different temperatures. This post looks at what I learned.

    This is part of a series that covers my experience with a Tesla Model Y.

    The First Drive

    In early April I took a day off to go skiing. I used to do this often based on weather, picking sunny and cool days. However, in 2023 I’m more schedule driven. I had to do this particular day because I had the free time.

    I woke up and it was about 12F outside. The forecast for Keystone for the day was a low of 1F and a high of 41F. A wild day, so I set out from home. I’d charged the car to 90% the night before, which was a failure on my part. The car had been set to 90, and I had meant to change this to 98, but forgot.

    I drove up, stopping a few times for coffee, food, and the restroom. I arrived at the resort parking lot with 35% charge left. It was 7F, and I was a little worried about skiing, but I assumed it would warm up. This also meant I’d used 55% of my charge getting up to the mountain.

    It was a nice day, and I enjoyed skiing, leaving around noon. At this point it had warmed up to 34F. I actually showed 36% on the battery driving home. When I mapped going home, the car recommended a charging stop in Idaho Springs for about 5 minutes. Since I planned on lunch from Beau Jos, that was fine.

    I parked, walked to the gas station to get a soda and then picked up my pizza. I charged for about 12 minutes, getting 27kW added. More than I needed. I arrived home with 37% left. With all the stops, I ended up going 221.4 miles on 91% charge.

    Possibly I could have made it on a single charge.

    A Spring Ski Day

    A few weeks later, I went again. This time it was around 50F when I left home. I arrived at the resort, where it was about 25F, but warming quickly.

    This time I’d charged to 96% the night before. I got to the parking lot with 49% left. Around 47% used. When I left for home, same lunch stop but not charging, I felt comfortable. I pulled into the garage with 22% left on an 80F day near my house. This trip was 217.7 miles.

    Summary

    There is a huge difference between a 30-40F day skiing and a 10-20F one. The car definitely loses some range in the cold. It’s worth paying a little attention here, but I probably could have avoided Super Charging, or at least done less, if I had charged more at home before the first trip.

    In terms of comparison, the drives up were roughly the same, same stops. I used 55% in extreme cold and 47% in cool weather. 8% difference here.

    The drives back had a few different stops as I ran different errands, but 36% returning from the mountains in the cold. In warmer temps, it was 38%. One thing to note is that the return trip in the cooler weather was more like the going up in warmer weather. Coming home the second time the AC ran a bit.

    I got this car because it had the range that I thought would let me day ski without an inconvenient charging time on the way home. I don’t know other EVs would do that, but with the Tesla Superchargers in Idaho Springs, Silverthorne, and Park Meadows on my journey, I had some leeway to stop quickly. Even in cold weather, and skiing in 15F weather is rare for me, I likely could have made this without stopping.

    However, life is life. Sometimes things don’t go your way. The charging stop wasn’t inconvenient at all since I needed a restroom and lunch. I actually got the notification from the car it was charged enough while walking to get my lunch.

    EVs are interesting, and they have a different paradigm. I have ceased thinking about range almost all the time, but I do plan differently than I do with ICE cars.

  • Tesla One Year Review at Nineteen Months

    Well, not one year. More like 18 months, but close enough. I’m writing this at just over 17 months of ownership, from Sept 2021 to Mar 2023.

    This is part of a series that covers my experience with a Tesla Model Y.

    The Highlights

    I never need gas and I have a full tank of fuel every morning. That’s the practical me, the real highlight is that the car is so fast it’s a lot of fun to drive. I stop by gas stations regularly for my diet Coke addition, and the few times I use a gas car, it’s strange to have to pull up to a pump and get fuel. In fact, I sometimes drive next to the little store and then realize I need to move the X5 because it needs gas.

    The car is fast. Acceleration is still exciting when I use it. Mostly I drive in chill mode as I don’t need the speed, it’s surprising to passengers, especially the dogs, and I sometimes bounce my own head off the headrest. However, when I need it, it makes merging into traffic easy because I can quickly match speeds with others.

    The car giving me access to data and controlling it from remote places is cool. I could start it for my wife when her phone died. I can heat/cool it from the gym or ski slope before I get to it. I have seen the UI change across 18 months to add features, like dog mode, like moving the camera display for turning, music controls, etc. I like this.

    Autopilot is great. I use it in certain places, and it keeps the car moving down the road, through bends, letting me watch the road, but not have to focus so much. It’s really nice when I’m tired that it reduces the stress of driving quite a bit, especially over distances.

    However, mostly, it’s just transportation that just works. I enjoy driving it, and there are times my wife and I are both wanting to drive it. I miss it when I’m in the X5, or the Suburban, or in a rental. At times, I wish we’d gotten an electric UTV instead of another gas one, but I’m not 100% sure Polaris has figured out the process of building a reliable electric car, both with batteries, motors, and software.

    The Issues

    Autopilot isn’t perfect. First, it doesn’t change lanes. I could subscribe and get that feature for a price, and perhaps I’ll do that sometimes, but it also has issues. Phantom breaking is much better, but it still flips out in a few places in Colorado. The stretch of C-470 from I-25 in the South going west to Kipling has a few places where the car reads the exit lane speed limit and slows from 70 to 55 quickly.

    There also are a few places with sharp curves of cresting a hill where it doesn’t handle things. It also sometimes accelerates and brakes like a new driver, being late to do both. I tend not to use it with my wife because she gets annoyed. As a driver, I can predict these places and I’m ready.

    Climate control isn’t perfect. Overall it matches temp well, but the lack of vents in the back, either in the console or side pillars, mean there isn’t great control in the rear. The lack of two fans or vent controls  in front also means that sometimes either the driver or passenger has to compromise with more or less fan than they might want.

    The front defroster also doesn’t work well in sleet. Most of the time it works OK, but my wife struggled with it in a bad sleet/rain/snow storm. I think this wasn’t engineered as well as much of the car.

    No having a rear wiper is annoying. It hasn’t been too much of an issue, but a couple times I wish I had one. It rarely rains in CO, so this might be a bigger issue in other places. The view out the rear is poor as well, which is annoying. With the cameras, I haven’t found this to be dangerous.

    In line with that, I wish I had a way to pop out the door handles, like the Model S. In snow, or at night, I can’t always find them easily, especially while carrying stuff. Rather annoying.

    It rarely happens, but sometimes the app loses connection to the car and I can’t open the doors. I have to kill and restart the app. Not a big deal, but it does happen. I also don’t always have my keycard with me, so I get slightly worried this might cause an issue at some point.

    Lastly, a trim piece in the car broke and was replaced under warranty. It needs to be replaced again Sad smile

    The Costs

    What has this car cost me? Here’s a breakdown:

    • Fuel: $919.80 in electricity (ish, my logger was down a bit). This is for 28k miles. My 100mi cost is $3.28. I’ve also spent about $87.44 at Superchargers.
    • Windshield fluid – 5 bottles at around US$4
    • New Rims – 1058.96 (busted one in a pothole. A single one from Tesla was $400 so I just got a new set aftermarket)
    • Winter Tires – $465.18
    • Flipping tires – $270 (3 slips. summer->winter->summer->winter)

    Of these costs, the tire costs would have been roughly what I’d have done in many other cars. Rims, hard to know. I could have bent one in any case, though the weight of the EV probably made this more likely.

    Maintenance has been about $20. Fuel is low. My 100mi cost in the BMW is easily $14-15 or more. That would have been around US$4k. That’s $3k savings.

    Registration is adding a new $8 sticker for EVs in my county, which I wouldn’t pay for a petrol car.

    Summary

    My wife and I were driving recently after a snowstorm. The car started beeping because it thought I was getting too close to the curb, but I was far away. However, the white snow had piled up and likely reflected enough to worry the car. Annoying. It also slowed the Autopilot during a light snow storm because it couldn’t see. Again, annoying.

    However, we both think the car is still the best one we’ve owned. We enjoy it immensely, even with a few quirks. The dog mode alone has been a large value add for us.

  • A Better UI for the Tesla

    Since I’ve had my Tesla Model Y, there have been a few things that changed in the UI. Some good, some bad, which is what I think about most software changes. This post talks about a few of these.

    This is part of a series that covers my experience with a Tesla Model Y.

    Side View

    There are pretty near cameras that you can use in the Tesla. Before I got mine, I saw some people posting how they like driving with the cameras on, as they can see behind and to the side of them

    At some point after I got my car, Tesla added an option to have the side camera appear when the turn signal was activated. I got a view like this one:

    2023-01-23 16_39_58-tesla side view camera turn signal - Google Search

    I thought that was pretty cool, but when I did this, the entire left side display jumped a bit to raise the car from the bottom of the screen to a point above the camera view. A bit jarring and annoying.

    A few months later, another software update fixed this. I could still get the camera view, but I could also move it around, to allow me to choose where it appears. I picked this spot:

    20230307_171433

    This allows me to see the view, but not have the car in the UI jump around when I signal.

    Music Controls

    I love music, and I love streaming Spotify in the Tesla as I drive around. It’s not a connection to my phone, but an app that logs into my account and streams independent of my phone.

    However, when I first got the Tesla, the controls for music were on the far side of the (wide) screen.

    2023-01-23 16_44_01-tesla model y music controls - Google Search

    It’s not a long stretch, but I do lean forward and right slightly to reach the next or previous buttons. I know I can use the steering wheel control, but that doesn’t always come to mind.

    One thing that I appreciated was moving the controls to the driver’s side of the car, which you can see below.

    20230125_171410

    What’s more, they added 3 cards for trip info and tire pressure to this same place. If I swipe left, I get the odometer trip stuff.

    20230125_171516

    Small changes, but these made a nice difference in how I work with the controls as I drive the car around.

    Customized Dock

    Another change made to the UI and functionality was setting 2 levels of steering wheel heat. When I got the car, I could only turn on steering wheel heating or off. Now I have two levels of heat, which is pretty cool. I mostly use the lower level, but I can use the high level when it’s really cold.

    However.

    Getting to this means opening up the climate controls and then finding the steering wheel in the center. I have to press this twice to get from off->high->low. Not easy to do if I’ve started driving, and it’s distracting.

    I can add this to the dock, along with other controls, which is cool. If I open the list of items, I see this:

    20230308_152554

    These are all the items I can select.

    Now, if I long press, I can edit, and then more controls appear.

    20230308_152601

    If you look at the bottom, I’ve added the steering wheel heater, which is one of the 5 most used items for me. Now I can turn it on and off without having to open a larger menu.

    A super useful item, especially for people that want to quickly control wipers. Not an issue in Colorado, but in other places, I know some people get annoyed they can’t turn these on with a button. They can, the left stalk button, but a screen button makes some people happier.

  • EV Myths

    I ran across an article on EV myths, this I thought was interesting. The myths are things that I see in comments on all sorts of articles or hear from people. They are:

    1. EVs take forever to recharge
    2. EVs can’t travel far
    3. EVs are slow
    4. EVs are unreliable
    5. EVs are super expensive

    I haven’t experienced any of these, with my EV charging fairly quickly, I go up to ski in mine, it’s fast (perhaps too fast), it always works, and it’s in line with luxury cars.

    The last one gave me pause, because my Model Y was the most expensive car I’ve every bought. It actually bothered me for months in the summer of 2021 until my wife got me to sit down and think rationally about it.

    The car is a $55-60k car. That is pricey, and not for everyone, but it’s in line with a petrol car from BMW, Audi, Mercedes, etc. Most of the other EVs, Polestar, Ionic, etc. are similarly priced. The basic Model 3 is in the 40s.

    Pricey, but not crazy.

    The high end Teslas (X and S) are like a high end 911 or BMW.

    I’ve had no maintenance in my model Y in 17 months. I’ve had it always charged when I start the day, so I almost never need to charge during the day. The times we’ve had to charge during the day (our summer trip in the mountains), the time was more than gas, but not much more than a pit stop for coffee and the bathroom.

    There was another article from the Atlantic, which I’ve seen reposted a few times as they are supposedly a world class, trustworthy journalism site. I think they are, but they harp on costs, which are like other cars. They can get high quickly. I agree that starting the Ford F150 around $50k but quickly going to $80 isn’t great, but it does give options to others.

    From what I’ve learned in a year and a half, the vast majority of the time, 95%+, I got less than 120 miles in a day. I could likely live with a 200-220mi range car. YMMV, but it really depends on you doing a little work to understand how you drive, how often, and how the car sits. There are days we go 250miles and need to charge, but that’s rare.

    Honestly, the more I drive the car, the more it’s just a car. The exception is longer trips, in which case, then my driving becomes like a trip through Wyoming or Montana with a diesel vehicle. I do a little planning.